Motherhooding

Getting ready Halloween 2005

Meredith had a wonderful quote on her blog from Elizabeth Gilbert: "When you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt. This is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty and also your entitlement as a human being to find something beautiful within life, no matter how slight."

To me this is what motherhood can seem like. Some days it seems as though life with A is just a series of actions that waiver from making him happy and getting stuff done. Those are the days where it is a struggle to find the balance of joy or contentment for both of us. I know and understand what I need to give him for happiness, the things to do with our days and minutes that will make him smile and be at peace. But there is a certain sense of unrest that I feel sometimes when there are things to get done or ideas I want to get down on paper or projects I want to start. Days like that I am not a good catch partner, I can not bring myself to love every dandelion he brings me.

I miss alone time when there wasn't a list of things to get done. I miss when the creative process was always the first on my to do list. But I am learning how to include him in my process, when I bake bread he has his own dough to knead and roll. He has his own drawing space, that he goes to when he wants to draw but he wants me there with him, not drawing my own things but sitting there just watching. I want to be him there, I would scribble and draw excitedly. Instead I watch as my linear son is more interested in lining the markers up and balancing the tops on the table.

So I am learning to search out the things to do that we both love to do. We go for long walks, throw sticks into streams, make mud, we bake and we sing silly songs. Still when we come home and we are sitting on the floor stacking jar lids I turn on the radio and occupy my mind with the world through public radio. I am engaged in both directions but I am also full of guilt that I can not love spending every minute in Alder's world.

What is the secret to entering that world? I know I go there sometimes, and the day goes by smoothly, we both get things done to fill our souls but it is a mystery how and why those day come together. Other days I rush to negotiate time alone to finish just a little of what needs to get done, never getting all the way through to creativity. This blog , most days, is my is my creative outlet.

Yet I agree that we need to holding onto happiness, because it is a fight that we are in. A fight with norms a fight with expectations and with loss of autonomy. So I try every night to look back and see what worked, where we were both happy, and I try to hold it close to me and try to live in it so that the next day I can bring these moments back and add more of them to our day. And maybe, just maybe, I'll have the energy to write a few pages or make something after he goes to bed tonight.